Completing the World Tour In previous units we studied the developed nations, the so-called first world of the G-8 nations. In the last unit we expanded our study to include the BRIC’s and the many other emerging market nations, the nations that can reasonably be projected to converge on first world levels of economic development… Read More »
The history of the world’s poorest nations is intertwined with the history of Imperialism, particularly European and U.S. attempts to build global empires. As the Maddison book has explored, once Columbus, Magellan, de Gama, and other explorers led the way in the 16th century, a handful of European nations (the U.S. would join in the… Read More »
Shifting Our Focus Although economic growth and increases in living standards have happened throughout human history, the really dramatic changes, the growth that truly transformed human life, doubled life expectancy, and made our modern world is a result of industrialization. It is the consequence of the industrial revolution (for our purposes, we can include the… Read More »
Emerging and Newly Industrialized Markets Who Are They? Politically, it is no longer considered acceptable to refer to countries as “second” or “third” world since the connotation is often taken to imply a secondary, or less-important political status.In this course I use the terminology “second world” not to mean secondary in importance, but rather as… Read More »
Capitalism vs. Socialism: The Background Ideology and The First World A lot of people argue about communism, capitalism, and socialism. These are questions of ideology. In political discussions people easily throw around the labels “socialist” or “greedy capitalist”. In the 2008 U.S. presidential election some Republicans accused Barak Obama of being a “socialist”. On the… Read More »
An Intellectual Road Map – Same Planet, Same Challenges This Unit of the course is supposed to be about ideologies and the different systems they produce. Traditionally that’s meant capitalism, socialism, and communism. But first, let’s take a look at what we might call a “topical road map” to economic systems. Speaking as a professor,… Read More »
I hear you. You’re feeling a little like the cat. I mean, you’re cool with this blogging thing now, but you’re wondering what to write about. And even more, you’re wondering what I’m wanting you write about so you get the “grade”. I’m going to try to ease your pain now, but there still may… Read More »
Economics and economic systems are very important to me. I’ve always been fascinated by them. At the same time, part of my motivation for studying economics has always been to try to understand better how society can improve the living standards of all it’s people. This is much the same motivation that has always driven… Read More »